Fighting Over the Last Grain of Rice
by MaussHauss
Summary: Aen Surana, in the twilight of his career - and thus, of his life - faces his greatest challenge yet: a finicky lover's Antivan sensibilities. Zev-centric / m!Surana / slash
1. Chapter 1

_(Psst. Hey. Readers, hey. Gimme yo comments, yo._  
_I see your pageviews but I don't get your love, how_  
_fair is that? Or you can tell me what you might not_  
_have liked, it's all cool. Only way I'll get better._

_Mkay though, seriously. _

_Enjoy the stories.)_

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Ferelden.

The very word felt odd in a long string of Antivan curses, but an obscenity it was - dreary, oft times frigid, and full of swamps where there weren't farms, and dogs where there weren't people. Zevran Arainai, formerly of the 8th cell of the Crow Assassins (not to be confused with the Fox Guild, who were Bards) under one Specibus Agnotti (who had recently passed, mysteriously, at the pages of a cleverly poisoned letter supposedly purloined mid-journey from his son, who Zevran heard was on the run from vengeful 'interrogations', tsk) - he of such an illustrious and infamous career would have left the self-inflicted hell as soon as his contract had been conquered.

It had felt all so romantic, at the start, run out of his beloved Antiva Jewel by heartache and treachery; and Zevran was a romantic at heart, though his was an internalized appreciation of the severity of emotion moreso than a manifest of perfumed promises. Oh, the promises and lyricism he could do, yes, just never very sincerely. The appreciation, though, that was bone-deep and had to be hidden carefully away like any weakness.

Much like the suppression of peasants will earn a Queendom bloody revolt, so did Zevran become a battle ground once insurgents had been riled within him, and he blamed the country itself before he could place any logical accusation elsewhere.

Perhaps if there was less mud, or fewer dogs, or lack of damnably cheap housing tucked securely away in abandoned farmsteads (which had no forthcoming claims, buyers or otherwise, so tainted from the residual Blight), then maybe he wouldn't be in this mess. Maybe he wouldn't have acted like some spoiled princeling, rising his demands just to test the patience of his lover, finding fault in nearly every corner of the house because he simply couldn't stand the idea of actually getting comfortable there, of settling in. Damn Ferelden property vacancy, and damn Ferelden's Hero, and damn the Blight, and double-damn the Ferelden sect of Grey Wardens.

Those men could take a long walk off a short pier for all Zevran cared, because now their 'retired' Commander had nothing better to do with his time than sit in a house and read, piling books up all over the (admittedly, damnably) spacious farmhouse until Zevran found himself tripping over the stacks, souring his day before it even started. That was only the tip of the iceberg, a list of problems arising in the blind spot his fake anger had created until they all came gushing out like blood from a reticulated arterial wound.

Real problems that had nothing to do with mud or the smell of dogs or where a man could and could not put his feet in a civilized environment (an acidic hint: not in Zevran's lap when he was trying to eat, and not on the table, ever, even with the boots off, unless there was somebody in the room Aen was trying to impress with casual body language, of which he suspected not since they were too isolated by moorland to get any visitors - pleasant or no - and why did Ferelden have to be so bloody _empty_ anyway oh that one was going on the list).

Was Ferelden frigid? Had that been on the list of woes? Because this day, Ferelden was hot stew for the lungs. This day, Zevran could almost close his eyes and imagine the waft of imported Seherian incense weaving through the crowds at market, of flashing gold and silvery laughter, of cardamon and fortune tellers, of still, hot nights and sweat like dew on a woman's brow. He would open his eyes to instead find the dog had replaced the smell of incense, and the sweat on Aen's brow was that of labor over the hammer and nail of new bookshelves - salty and difficult to ply from the skin it covered because, quote, 'it's just too hot right now, and you'll want these done to save your bruises'.

There were good days, of course, but they were so swiftly tucked away in favor of self-pity and aimless, sourceless anger (and when was the last time he'd been asked to kill anything that wasn't a deer for the week's supper?) that they hardly seemed to have passed at all. Zevran was languishing, and Aen was oblivious, and a door was slammed to the mutual mystification of dog and lover alike.

Aen stood, and nodded toward the door for the hulking, scarred old Warbeast to depart, if only for a little while as he swept the house up a bit. The door to the master bedroom still creaked, a safety measure left rusty Just In Case, and Zevran glanced up from the accounts booking cleverly hiding his personal journal to scowl at the washing Aen was collecting to take down to the rocky lakeshore not two miles from the property fence.

"You needn't act the dutiful housewife to - " To what? Soothe Zevran's ire?

Aen was justifiably affronted by the very comparison, and raised a cool eyebrow. "We could hire a maid, but she'd have to live with us and you'd either kill her for a spy or father six bastards in as many years."

That stung, and it stung him that it stung, and it bothered him that it stung twice, because why of all times should Aen now reward his churlish ill moods with anything but long-suffering patience? Had the feathers of that cool head been ruffled at last by oppressive boggy heat? Thrice damn this country and its climate, anyway, that which was such a cruel mockery of Antiva's rainy summer to push Zevran's homesickness tenfold.

"Which would you prefer, I wonder? A parcel of bastards to cluck your tongue over would suit your mother-henning about, would it no?"

Aen dropped the wicker basket to the stone floor as if it had burnt him, holding his hands up in the defensive, cross-culture signal for 'I have no weapon'. "How was I supposed to know Hound was a female! The puppies are weaned and gone, are they not? You have your silent afternoons back, do you not?"

The book is snapped shut, Zevran's voice going quiet and sharp. "Yes, silent afternoons. Unbroken, unchanging, nothing before me but a study in amateur sod-tilling," a sarcastic quirk of the mouth "or carpentry."

"Or day trips to the Dalish traders, or conversation over fresh red-gill, or a hunt. You're hardly lacking, Zevran, even if you complain constantly over the state of the house yet make no move to sully your hands with anything less than the blood of some rich politician-"

"Had we lived in a city we could more readily hire that maid of yours."

"You. _Chose_ the house. For its _location_."

"I meant in order to get you that parcel of children, since you fit the farmwife role so very well."

"You want me to strike at you, is that it? I can't imagine any other goal for this." Aen bends to take up the washing again, shaking his head. "You could just ask. Say 'Aen, hit me as hard as you can, or I'll compare you to a woman again and commit you to fatherhood-by-association'." This last quip was delivered from the hall, and Zevran stormed out of his chair to slam the door after.

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	2. Chapter 2

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Then came mealtime; an exhausted, damp lover trudged about the yard pinning up fabric still heavy with wet. The sun was setting and a nice breeze carried water-cooled air in from the moor, clearing Zevran's mind long enough for him to feel something other than irritation - and that something had everything to do with the way Aen's shorn hair stuck out dark red with damp, and how he labored shirtless so that freckles had begun to appear over the season, bony shoulders dusted pink and gold above a slim back now defined by the muscle of ... of some obnoxious defining chore most likely - Zevran kept up with rigorous exercise when he could but still had lost muscle definition and would have killed (ha) for a tower or cliff on which to practice climbing.

But. That recurring irritation was but a feather in the winds of _lust_ that now tugged him from the side door of the kitchens and the grilled fish he had prepared to pick his way silently across the overgrown garden and on to the grassy clearing that would have been a potato field had not half of it borne the black scar of Blighted earth. Aen went down in a none-too-gentle tackle, taking half the clothesline with him. They landed with the heavy slap of wet bedlinnen, Aen's shock turned to shoving turned to kissing, mad and passionate as if they'd been apart for years.

Zevran didn't wait until he was too hard to move from the spot (his usual _modus operandi_ involved creative adaptation in posture to avoid injury against various surfaces and on precarious furniture not originally suited to the weight of two fully grown bodies, elven or no), he bundled the damp sheet away from them and used the momentum of helping Aen to a stand to throw him over his shoulder. A squawk of protest, but no flailing or actual demand to stop, as there weren't any witnesses and Aen never gave much thought to his own dignity in and of itself.

The kitchen was passed and a plate snagged to be enjoyed in the bedroom, perhaps after the rigorous and long-approaching marathon of carnal indulgence Zevran had stewed in the back of his mind over the course of the week. Which, judging by the utter lack of fight in the man he was carting about like a rag doll, might not be a marathon so much as a refreshing sprint, but he'd take what he could get if it meant escaping his thoughts for an hour or two.

Or, as it turned out, a mere half an hour, because Aen didn't last past the extended oral attention (Zevran's fault mostly, nearly punishing his lover with purred Antivan encouragement skipping dark and velvety over skin that still held the sun's warmth) and favored dropping off to sleep over filling his stomach (which wasn't as rare an occurrence as it should have been, and brought another dose of agitation with Zevran's worry). The worst part of it was not that Zevran had to suffer a painful recall in his nethers, no; he caved to self pity once again and used his hand, nose buried behind Aen's ear, surfacing from the unimpressive orgasm feeling hollow. Nor that the food went to the dog, having been robbed of his appetite by the exertion, which had built up heat just under his skin despite the eerie cold of the large stone house at night.

No. The actual issue arose after Zevran had settled to the hearthside table with a bottle of drink to keep him company through the remainder of the dreary night. Aen finally wobbled from the bedroom sometime past the midnight candle, clothes and hair dried in a rumple, bleary-eyed while mechanically fixing a pot of water over the hearth for soaking grains.

"Just leave it." Zevran snapped, surprised himself that the very witnessing of Aen at a domestic chore set his teeth on edge. "You are the Hero of Ferelden," this time, not a curse "and you can stand to take a day off from drudgery."

"If this is you being charitable, I'd hate to see you petty." A crooked smirk thrown over a shoulder half-bared from overlarge tunic, and Zevran is sore and tired and aches so badly for the man absurdly bent over flint and tinder when once he could snap his fingers and bring candles to life and everything in this country is a miserable echo of shattered expectations and - "Zevran," It's not quite a beckon, not quite a question, Aen meeting his eyes with cautious regard and since _when_ was there ever fear between them? "Are you ill? Fevers travel through bad air, especially after Blight."

"I am no ill." Words drowsily clipped in half with ever-thick Antivan accent, helped along by ever-thick Antivan brandy. "I miss you." One tiny revolutionary had pulled up a soapbox and spoken out, and now the entirety of Zevran recoiled, rebelled, clashed against itself as soon as the words were out. To Aen's answering smile; "You are a shell of your former glory, and it pains me at the sight of you sometimes." Which, admittedly, hadn't come out the way he had worded it in his mind, which had a lot more to do with all the _stop-doing-chores-you're-too-good-for-that-kinda-thing_ and a lot less with the whole _I'm-disappointed-you-are-so-broken_.

"You're drunk," Aen stood from his task, posture closed and face a disconcerting blank. "So I'll forgive you that." His tone did not illustrate this supposed grace, though, and when he leaned over Zevran's chair there was a blurry moment in which emotional discomfort tripped on the heels of libido and Zevran grinned despite the confusion.

"No proving me wrong? Tsk." His insides, warm with drink, fluttered lazily at Aen's answering expression, then seemed to plummet to the icy cellar when that look sharpened into something contemptuous.

"You reek, and I'm not about to reward your tantrums. Go to bed."

Zevran scoffed, eyebrows raised, unimpressed in the far-away cloud of inebriation. "Only if you join me, _amore_."

Aen stood, covering a flinch. "... Aye. I'll be right after."

Thus cheered, though not pushing his luck with any parting kiss or embrace, Zevran happily swayed from the table and on through the house to the lamp-lit bedroom. It had been quite some time since he had felt safe enough to get nearly this drunk, and woke half-undressed a few hours later to early birdsong. The lamp had extinguished, and Aen's side of the bed was cold. Fear and adrenaline swiftly chased the budding hangover from Zevran's veins as he swept from the bed, righting his clothing and pulling a dagger from its mount on the way out.

Too many emotions, riotous peasants as fed up as they were under Zevran's strict dictatorship, rose to the forefront upon reaching the kitchens (after a cursory sweep of the rest of the house, panic building sour in the back of his throat).

There, in front of the smoldering leftover of the hearth fire, reclining sound asleep against the curve of Hound's massive side, was the Hero of Ferelden. Aen Surana, Zevran's lover, owning the body in which Zevran put his seed, snug against some filthy yard animal as if Kaddis stink had more appeal than a night in Zevran's company - not that he sported a low opinion of Mabari Warhounds but they were _animals_ given _straw beds_ as the height of their luxury and it stung, no it _stabbed_, wounded, no, _crippled_ Zevran's very ego that Aen would choose hard flagstone and smelly beast over -

Hound growled low in her throat as Zevran stalked nearer, and the noise stirred Aen into reaching his thin arm over her neck and pulling her flopping jowls across his face as if her great square head were a pillow. The growl itself had funneled Zevran's tempest of hurt and confusion into shock, and Aen's reaction had pushed anger to the forefront, with a fair amount of disgust throwing its numbers into the revolt.

A bird lit upon a rain barrel in the garden, cautiously pecking for woodlice. Careful listening warned of the approaching chaos, and it darted from the barrel with a squawk a spare moment before the kitchen doors splintered open in a great crash. The Mabari recovered quickly to its feet, but not in time to meet the door as it was slammed shut lopsided, leaping back and forth with furious barking.

The rabbit that had crawled, scrawny and nervous, from its blight-scorched den to sample the herbs in their pots along the front patio received a similar nasty shock when a tangle of elves came bursting out of the front of the house. The rapid noise of an Antivan in high ire had frozen it to the spot as surely as a thunderclap in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and the poor beast perished of heart arrest by the time the shorter elf had wrangled the taller over his shoulder.

Aen commanded Hound to her spot in a voice strained with confusion, and the hesitation in his struggle only fanned the flames of resentment in his captor.

"_To sleep with dogs - ! No lover of mine -_ !" Zevran's rage only faltered at the exercise of the swift cant into the two miles they had to cover to get to the lake. He hadn't thought to bring soap, and would scrub with his own two hands if need be, but the smell of dog _would_ be gone or he'd - or else -

"That's quite enough; ought we just -" At Aen's increased alarm and struggle, Zevran did relent, but pulled him by the hand ever onward without glancing back once. Aen hardened his grip in equal measure and followed, having fallen silent after the first questions failed to interrupt the steady rant in a language as suited to anger as knives were fit to their sheaths.

"_It is insult and injury both; we could live as lords - we *should* live as lords - I could *make* Antiva safe for us; away from the mud and the dogshit and the pots to be scrubbed_!" The scent of cool water breezed through and Zevran quickened pace, tugging Aen up beside him and marching him forward by the arm. "_I do much for you, my love; I gave up much. I will *not* fuck a dog-loving dirtfarmer, because that's not who I - you're not - I refuse to share a bed with you who would bring *fleas* to us rather than - how could you sleep to the *floor* when I_ -"

They crested the shore and traded the packed dirt of the trail for the smooth stones of the lakeside. Zevran, despite the chill, strode them both straight in, the cloudy splash of a brief protest dominated by his drive forward. He traded tirade for limited Ferelden, and the scorn of it nearly burned Aen's ears.

"I have so far surmised that you have been upset," Aen had a hard time keeping his laughter in check, though anxious over just how deep they were wading. The water was chest-level when Zevran finally released Aen's hand and began to tug away his tunic. "By a dog?" The breeches were a struggle, especially since Aen's misconception that loss of clothing meant perhaps Zevran was just after a bit of affection - the kiss had not only been avoided, but met with a hand to the face and a dunk beneath the murky water.

Aen surfaced with a sharp knot of panic, backing a pace toward the shore as Zevran bundled his clothing and tossed it to the rocks. It was not fear that flashed through his eyes after sputtering up from another dunk, but an indignant anger, and Zevran's relief was but a leaf in the wind. There was the man he remembered vowing his life to, cold fury and tempered dignity, unrelenting as a force of nature, free of sentiment and ready to strike down those who would challenge any of these things. "Again, until the reek of it is gone from your skin," Was the only warning before Zevran pulled Aen's legs out from under him in yet another dunk.

What Zevran supposed was attempted retreat from humiliation was in fact a panicked, blind scramble for the shallows. He was not drowning Aen by any stretch of the imagination, but every plunge back into the dark cold press of the lake hammered against Aen's past and dented his usual reserve until he was aimlessly striking out to free himself. Lip bloodied by an errant elbow, Zevran shucked off his own tunic and set to scrubbing whatever of Aen he could hold onto, grim and unrelenting. The water churned between and around them through the struggle, and with every inch gained toward the shore Zevran would tug them an entire pace further out.

Aen's teeth chattered from fear as much as cold, and he clung to Zevran in reluctant desperation. "Not so far - !"

The weakness in that plea seemed to fester between Zevran's ears, turning his anger malicious. "Think you I'd let you drown?" He kicked through the water, leaving the shelf of rock with Aen in hand. "Am I a nuisance? A danger, now?" he sneered, pressing up close to the hard embrace, the momentum of their swim aimed in a lazy circle. "Hoh? Well?"

"Just what are you trying to prove?" Aen's feet met rock at last and he shoved so hard at Zevran's chest that he himself nearly went under (water in the ears, the worst thing). "I'm freezing, I'm confused, and you..." Aen gulped in air, bobbing with the ebb of hesitant waves. "Can't seem to make up your mind if you want to bed me or bury me," a weak laugh, forced out through a tight throat.

Zevran disappeared in a swift dive, the cold fingers of the lake combing through his hair and sweeping his headache gentle. He resurfaced noiselessly between Aen and the shore, eyes and nose just above the water like a reptile, hair sleek against his scalp.

Aen swallowed, bobbing in place along the prod of a small wave. "'Tis cold," he prompted, snagging an errant bit of clothing as the next wave pushed him closer. At Zevran's lack of response; "Am I not yet clean enough, or are you waiting for a full moon and a Dalish ablution rite? It'd take half a week to get a Keeper down here, and I do so hate getting all pruney." He made as if to shove past, but hesitated against the brush of Zevran's forearm. "Run out of languages with which to berate me? You could try Arcanum; there's one I'd half understand."

Zevran stood in the waist-high water, crowding Aen slowly. "You are never again to act the peasant. Not to my witness, not ever." He grabbed Aen's chin. "Do you understand?"

"I understand you're in dire wanting for a kicked arse." Fingers closed around wrist, glare met glare. "If you ever shove me into a fishy, freezing 'bath' before the sun's height again."

"Tch," Zevran released Aen's face, earning his wrist back. "And how, exactly, could you ever deliver on such a threat?" He turned his back then, feeling like a snuffed candle. Aen's arm looped around his bare chest and pulled him back, and Zevran nearly gave in to the affection until the lips closing over his ear firmed into a biting hold that struggle only made worse. He did not demand release, curious over Aen's next move and unimpressed by a little pain.

The hand that had splayed over Zevran's heart now slid down into the water and to his trouser laces before plunging down past his smallclothes to -very- firmly grip his balls. Once secured that Zevran had learned the pain of further movement, Aen released his ear to hiss, "I could hurt you in a way no man or woman in all of Thedas ever could or ever has, and we both know I don't mean physically. What you can't seem to grasp," For the fingers attempting to ply his wrist, Aen squeezed all the harder. "Is that I never would. You've been trying your damndest to test that."

Zevran remained tense and hunched in the water, arms held out to dissuade further reparations to that delicate area - he could kill Aen ten different ways or otherwise disable him from this position certainly, but this wasn't a life-or-death struggle and really he just wanted his balls back so they could return to Not Discussing this over tea or something.

"To put it in a way that might penetrate that thick skull of yours; I plan to fuck you until you can no longer stand. It shall hurt you more than it hurts me, which will serve a proper example of our life together I should think." Aen didn't wait for a nod, and didn't elaborate. He knew the moment Zevran had ferreted out the sacrifice Grey Wardens were truly famous for, that Zevran would outlive his lover by twenty years at the very least. That if Zevran were to commit to their partnership in the long term, that he would, in the end, suffer the most for it. "If this is something you do not wish to endure, then say the word. I would honor your protest in this just as I would honor it for all else - but you _must_ speak to me." A dark chuckle. "Contrary to rumor, I cannot read minds."

Despite the chill of the water, Zevran's length was perking up. Instead of admitting that his one true fear was complacency (because a happy life is a fragile thing easily shattered unless one struggles by tooth and nail and Zevran did not wish to survive one war only to spend his days fighting a constant other), he simply followed Aen's threats to their inevitable end. To speak out now would be to set a precedent for speaking out later, and Zevran really was intrigued by the prospect of being taken rough and relentless as promised.

So he did not protest, at least not verbally and what physical struggle he gave was simply to get them to the nearest boulder for more operable leverage. They had no oil between them, merely the rude interruption of lakewater to accompany the sting - and soon a sort of overtaxed numbness. Aen let Zevran loose to grip their rocky support, panting harsh in his ear. Once or twice, Zevran thought he recognized the old familiar thrill he'd feel labouring under a particularly valuable mark, but then a mouth would close sweetly over his shoulder or a hand would wander to his bobbing erection and the dark chill would be gone.

He damn near regretted its absence.

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x

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_*rises from the lake like a zombie,_  
_arms raised* "R and RRRRR. R &_  
_R!"_


End file.
